I had a very pleasant Thanksgiving with my family. I also got to go to two birthday parties, and paint my sister's kitchen. I had the second phone interview for the Alaska job.
I've been invited for a personal interview; I'm one of three finalists for the job, so I'll be flying to Anchorage the 13th, having the interview the 15th, and flying back the 16th. I will have Sunday to do some exploring, and to get used to the 4 hour time difference. The interview process is an all day affair that starts about 7:45am and ends about 8:30pm. As with the rest of this application process, it will be a good experience and good practice, even if nothing else happens. I'm extremely happy to have made it through all the cuts to being one of three. (and yes, I am taking my camera, and yes, I will be taking as many photos as possible).
There are two weeks left of school. The following week is the interview at the beginning of the week and graduation at the end. I'm guessing the rest of the month will consist of hectic packing and figuring out what to do with things.
Callie is glad I'm back, but I'm thinking she's not going to be quite so happy when I leave again in a couple weeks.... (we're not even going to talk about boxes and what will happen with packing.)
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Monday, November 24, 2008
Happy (early) Thanksgiving
So, I am leaving tomorrow for Omaha for Thanksgiving. I may or may not have a chance to post while I'm gone. Meanwhile, happy thanksgiving to all of you. Hopefully, when I return, I will have more news about the great job quest.
I don't know what these trees are, either, but they're scattered around campus. They look like they could be harvesty, fall-like decorations, so they're appropriate to the season. They seem Thanksgivingy.
Callie is preparing herself for my departure. She's already alternating between mad and clingy. Just wait until I get back, though. Woo hoo. My mom suggested that Callie's reaction to my return could be the next video attempt. Hmmmm....
I don't know what these trees are, either, but they're scattered around campus. They look like they could be harvesty, fall-like decorations, so they're appropriate to the season. They seem Thanksgivingy.
Callie is preparing herself for my departure. She's already alternating between mad and clingy. Just wait until I get back, though. Woo hoo. My mom suggested that Callie's reaction to my return could be the next video attempt. Hmmmm.... Sunday, November 23, 2008
Decisions
Okay, those of you who have talked to me lately have seen me at my crazy and indecisive best, even for a Libra. Depending on the day you talked to me, I might have been postponing graduation for a semester, possibly applying to PhD programs and any other sort of postponement of life after SLIS.
The whole job search thing is such a roller coaster ride. Woo hoo, we're up! Oh, now we're down. They called, they haven't called. I was an idiot during my interview. I wasn't that bad. Repeat. (and repeat, and repeat again.)
I don't like the not knowing that comes with change. It was feeling safer to stay for another semester, just to know what was happening in the future. I think life has a way of figuring out when you're avoiding, though. I had two things happen this weekend that have helped push me away from my indecisiveness.
One, I had an email from Alaska, and I'm still a candidate (their term - "one of the finalists"). I have another phone interview to look forward to surviving. What I want to know is if I get a sash for being a finalist (I've been practicing my wave).
Two, I have someone to take over the lease of my apartment. This means I will need to go somewhere at the end of December, so I can't keep doing this wishy washy, I want it all kind of thing. I want to be in school and out of school. I want to stay here and I want to leave. I want to move and not move. Straddling all those fences was making me cranky, if nothing else.
It's kind of funny. I was just talking about this on Saturday at work. I left thinking, I really can't keep trying to stand in all the squares at the same time. It's one thing to stay with the feeling of being uncomfortable while you consider options. It's another to know what you need to do, but let fear make you crazy. Deciding to decide, deciding to do what I needed to do even though I was afraid, opened things up that had seemed stuck. Weird that that's when I suddenly got emails.... hmm, some of you would say that it's not a coincidence.
So, apparently, I will be graduating in December, according to plan. I may or may not be employed. Believe me, I will keep everyone posted on how the job search goes. And if you find me sleeping on your porch in January, well, just look at it as having your own live-in librarian.... In the meantime, pass me some boxes. Looks like I'm packing for the eleventeenth time.
The whole job search thing is such a roller coaster ride. Woo hoo, we're up! Oh, now we're down. They called, they haven't called. I was an idiot during my interview. I wasn't that bad. Repeat. (and repeat, and repeat again.)
I don't like the not knowing that comes with change. It was feeling safer to stay for another semester, just to know what was happening in the future. I think life has a way of figuring out when you're avoiding, though. I had two things happen this weekend that have helped push me away from my indecisiveness.
One, I had an email from Alaska, and I'm still a candidate (their term - "one of the finalists"). I have another phone interview to look forward to surviving. What I want to know is if I get a sash for being a finalist (I've been practicing my wave).
Two, I have someone to take over the lease of my apartment. This means I will need to go somewhere at the end of December, so I can't keep doing this wishy washy, I want it all kind of thing. I want to be in school and out of school. I want to stay here and I want to leave. I want to move and not move. Straddling all those fences was making me cranky, if nothing else.
It's kind of funny. I was just talking about this on Saturday at work. I left thinking, I really can't keep trying to stand in all the squares at the same time. It's one thing to stay with the feeling of being uncomfortable while you consider options. It's another to know what you need to do, but let fear make you crazy. Deciding to decide, deciding to do what I needed to do even though I was afraid, opened things up that had seemed stuck. Weird that that's when I suddenly got emails.... hmm, some of you would say that it's not a coincidence.
So, apparently, I will be graduating in December, according to plan. I may or may not be employed. Believe me, I will keep everyone posted on how the job search goes. And if you find me sleeping on your porch in January, well, just look at it as having your own live-in librarian.... In the meantime, pass me some boxes. Looks like I'm packing for the eleventeenth time.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Tattoo News
So, I finally decided that I really would get a tattoo. I decided what I wanted, and where I wanted it. The plan - do it in Omaha while I was back for Thanksgiving.
The problem? Well, I found the person I want to do my tattoo. This is the website: http://www.liquidcourageomaha.com/index.php. Click on the link for Jason, and you will see why I want him to do my tattoo. The only thing is, he's booked solid. (Oh big surprise there) So now, the dilemma is, when do I try to go back to have this done? Argh! I guess I've waited this long, so what's a little longer, right? January might be nice....
Now that I've seen the very cool tattoos, though, it makes it harder to wait.
The problem? Well, I found the person I want to do my tattoo. This is the website: http://www.liquidcourageomaha.com/index.php. Click on the link for Jason, and you will see why I want him to do my tattoo. The only thing is, he's booked solid. (Oh big surprise there) So now, the dilemma is, when do I try to go back to have this done? Argh! I guess I've waited this long, so what's a little longer, right? January might be nice....
Now that I've seen the very cool tattoos, though, it makes it harder to wait.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
What I learned in graduate school
I took a podcast workshop recently, in which I learned all kinds of cool things. Instead of doing actual homework, I've been playing around with some different programs and applications, and have created....Tra la la... a movie of Callie!
This is very basic, and to upload it I had to convert the file to something half the original size. Consequently, the resolution isn't fantastic, but it's still Callie, and I can say I've created my first video which could become a podcast, if I wanted it to be. Who says grad school is only research and reading? Probably the coolest thing about the video is that I got to use a Jenn Adams song; I didn't want to violate any copyright laws, so I emailed her for permission. She's letting me use the song. Hopefully she doesn't change her mind if she sees the "quality" of the video. Hey, you have to start somewhere.
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Hope
Hope is like a road in the country; there was never a road, but when many people walk on it, the road comes into existence. - Lin Yutang
Now that the election is over, I have found myself torn between hope for the future of our country and the cynicism born from and then reinforced with every election since Reagan’s first term. The 1980 election was the first in which I was able to vote. Since that time, over and over again, I have voted against candidates, learning to hope only that things wouldn’t get worse than the way they were at the moment of the election. My hopes for real change were buried long ago. I did not believe that government reflected my values and beliefs in any way, shape, or form. Government was something to be endured, filled with politicians who lied, ignored the ordinary citizens of the United States, and functioned more like a monarchy than a democracy. With each election, my hopes dwindled and my cynicism grew.
I wish I could say that with this election, I voted with my heart filled with joy and the belief that things could be different. I can’t. I voted FOR Obama, the first election in 28 years that I’ve actually voted FOR someone. I voted FOR Obama in spite of the little cynical voice in my head that said, sure, he’s an inspiring speaker, but he’s a politician; he can talk about change, but things will just go on as they have. I voted FOR Obama because of the tiny spark of hope that I still carry for my country. I’ve stayed in the U.S., in spite of threatening to leave for Canada after each successive election, because really, I do love it. That made each election cycle more and more painful, and the layers of my cynicism deeper and deeper. If you know that you will be hit, and that it will hurt, you learn to protect yourself from the blow. My cynicism protected me from the pain of feeling more and more disconnected from my country and my government.
My friend Craig sent me an email on the night of the election. He, unlike me, has been both hopeful and joyful during the election process. He wrote, “It is time to write a new story....government is good...taxes are not a burden, but rather the cost of living in a country that values the common good over individual greed...make peace not war....and hopefully, someday in the not to distant future, we will hear the words "Made in America" again....”
He wrote another email today: “This election was a sea change that comes along once in a generation, and the support is there for bold, aggressive, and progressive leadership...twenty eight years ago Ronald Reagan brought change to Washington and rewrote the story....if you recall he said welfare queens were abusing the system, government was bad, taxes were a burden, and we needed a big stick when dealing with the rest of the world....that story died on Tuesday night. Now it is our turn to write a new story....”
“Our turn.” This is where my hope comes from, that Obama’s government might actually listen to the people it governs, that it might take its power FROM the people, not impose power ON us. I didn’t listen to Obama’s victory speech until today. I said I didn’t have the time or opportunity, but really it was fear. I was afraid to hope. I was afraid of peeling back the layers of cynicism to uncover my hope again. I knew from past experience that reviving hope hurts at first; it hurts to wake something up that’s been sleeping for a long time.
I found the speech online and tried to mentally steel myself to listen to it. I’d watched the yes, we can speech on YouTube with millions of others. That was when the election was still in contention, though. Cynicism won out then, because I did not believe that Obama could win the election. This time, knowing that other people had chosen hope over fear, knowing that Obama was the president-elect of the United States, I wanted to hope, too. I wanted hope even though I knew that hope would bring pain. Maybe just hoping for hope opens the heart. Or maybe knowing that so many others were also hoping made me feel less alone than I’ve felt for a long time…. I’m not sure. I do know that watching that speech broke open a place in my heart where my hope has been sheltering, curled into a protective ball. It broke through the shame I’ve felt for my country, the pain I’ve felt in admitting that I am an American. I didn’t just get a little teary. I broke down and cried. To be honest, I don’t think I’m done crying yet. I have 28 years of grief in my heart.
Obama’s speech made me remember something from my own past. When I was in junior high school, the school I went to was not a “good” school. Basically, the entire school of kids had been written off, since we lived in a low-income part of the city and weren’t expected to amount to much. Teachers had no real support from administrators. No one listened to us. No one cared. We were “those” kids. We lived up to those expectations. In music class, we caused a variety of subs to leave, vowing never to come back to “that” school again. Then we got a new principle. He started to build up the morale of the school. I remember he passed out copies and used this quote all the time. I won’t remember it exactly, but it was something to the effect that engineers, etc all say that the bumblebee is incapable of flight because of its wings – but the bumblebee doesn’t know that. We thought of ourselves as kids that didn’t matter, that didn’t count. He brought our school hope, and the bumblebee became the symbol of that hope. Even then, I was surprised at the amount of change that happened in only a year.
I’ve seen what hope can do. I’ve also seen how fast hope can work, when it’s followed by action. I’m going to choose to keep my heart open to hope, even though I’m still a little bit afraid. Like Craig wrote, “Now it is our turn to write a new story.” And it is.
OUR. turn. to. write. a. NEW. story. Yes, we can.
Now that the election is over, I have found myself torn between hope for the future of our country and the cynicism born from and then reinforced with every election since Reagan’s first term. The 1980 election was the first in which I was able to vote. Since that time, over and over again, I have voted against candidates, learning to hope only that things wouldn’t get worse than the way they were at the moment of the election. My hopes for real change were buried long ago. I did not believe that government reflected my values and beliefs in any way, shape, or form. Government was something to be endured, filled with politicians who lied, ignored the ordinary citizens of the United States, and functioned more like a monarchy than a democracy. With each election, my hopes dwindled and my cynicism grew.
I wish I could say that with this election, I voted with my heart filled with joy and the belief that things could be different. I can’t. I voted FOR Obama, the first election in 28 years that I’ve actually voted FOR someone. I voted FOR Obama in spite of the little cynical voice in my head that said, sure, he’s an inspiring speaker, but he’s a politician; he can talk about change, but things will just go on as they have. I voted FOR Obama because of the tiny spark of hope that I still carry for my country. I’ve stayed in the U.S., in spite of threatening to leave for Canada after each successive election, because really, I do love it. That made each election cycle more and more painful, and the layers of my cynicism deeper and deeper. If you know that you will be hit, and that it will hurt, you learn to protect yourself from the blow. My cynicism protected me from the pain of feeling more and more disconnected from my country and my government.
My friend Craig sent me an email on the night of the election. He, unlike me, has been both hopeful and joyful during the election process. He wrote, “It is time to write a new story....government is good...taxes are not a burden, but rather the cost of living in a country that values the common good over individual greed...make peace not war....and hopefully, someday in the not to distant future, we will hear the words "Made in America" again....”
He wrote another email today: “This election was a sea change that comes along once in a generation, and the support is there for bold, aggressive, and progressive leadership...twenty eight years ago Ronald Reagan brought change to Washington and rewrote the story....if you recall he said welfare queens were abusing the system, government was bad, taxes were a burden, and we needed a big stick when dealing with the rest of the world....that story died on Tuesday night. Now it is our turn to write a new story....”
“Our turn.” This is where my hope comes from, that Obama’s government might actually listen to the people it governs, that it might take its power FROM the people, not impose power ON us. I didn’t listen to Obama’s victory speech until today. I said I didn’t have the time or opportunity, but really it was fear. I was afraid to hope. I was afraid of peeling back the layers of cynicism to uncover my hope again. I knew from past experience that reviving hope hurts at first; it hurts to wake something up that’s been sleeping for a long time.
I found the speech online and tried to mentally steel myself to listen to it. I’d watched the yes, we can speech on YouTube with millions of others. That was when the election was still in contention, though. Cynicism won out then, because I did not believe that Obama could win the election. This time, knowing that other people had chosen hope over fear, knowing that Obama was the president-elect of the United States, I wanted to hope, too. I wanted hope even though I knew that hope would bring pain. Maybe just hoping for hope opens the heart. Or maybe knowing that so many others were also hoping made me feel less alone than I’ve felt for a long time…. I’m not sure. I do know that watching that speech broke open a place in my heart where my hope has been sheltering, curled into a protective ball. It broke through the shame I’ve felt for my country, the pain I’ve felt in admitting that I am an American. I didn’t just get a little teary. I broke down and cried. To be honest, I don’t think I’m done crying yet. I have 28 years of grief in my heart.
Obama’s speech made me remember something from my own past. When I was in junior high school, the school I went to was not a “good” school. Basically, the entire school of kids had been written off, since we lived in a low-income part of the city and weren’t expected to amount to much. Teachers had no real support from administrators. No one listened to us. No one cared. We were “those” kids. We lived up to those expectations. In music class, we caused a variety of subs to leave, vowing never to come back to “that” school again. Then we got a new principle. He started to build up the morale of the school. I remember he passed out copies and used this quote all the time. I won’t remember it exactly, but it was something to the effect that engineers, etc all say that the bumblebee is incapable of flight because of its wings – but the bumblebee doesn’t know that. We thought of ourselves as kids that didn’t matter, that didn’t count. He brought our school hope, and the bumblebee became the symbol of that hope. Even then, I was surprised at the amount of change that happened in only a year.
I’ve seen what hope can do. I’ve also seen how fast hope can work, when it’s followed by action. I’m going to choose to keep my heart open to hope, even though I’m still a little bit afraid. Like Craig wrote, “Now it is our turn to write a new story.” And it is.
OUR. turn. to. write. a. NEW. story. Yes, we can.
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Job Updates and Other Random Babbling
Apparently, I was not a complete dork in my phone interview with Alaska. They contacted me yesterday for permission to check references, the next step in the process. I've made it through several weeding out points - the application stage and the phone interview stage If I make it through the reference checking stage, I could be invited to come to Anchorage for a series of interviews. Yikes! Since my references all know about the job, it's still out of my hands at this point. All I can do is wait. They'd like to have someone in Alaska for interviews the week after Thanksgiving, though, so it doesn't sound like I'll have to wait too long for some sort of an answer. I'm holding to my original thought, which is that every stage I get to is another learning experience that will help me in the future. The other jobs I've applied for will be closing at various points during this month; until then, there's nothing I can do about them, either.
Meanwhile, we've got assignments due in cataloging every week from this week through the end of the semester. Our final project is both a cumulation of the assignments we've been working on, and the addition of new material. The first kids' lit seminar assignment is due Friday - an annotated bibliography of war stories for teen girls. If anyone's interested in reading war stories teen girls might like, let me know. I've found some interesting ones, including a novel based on the life of a woman who fought in the Civil War while dressed as a boy. We still have a paper, and then leading a two hour group discussion due in that class. Enough to keep me busy.
As promised, here's a picture of the mailing we finished at work - all 1533 ballot packets packed in boxes before going down to the mailroom.
Meanwhile, we've got assignments due in cataloging every week from this week through the end of the semester. Our final project is both a cumulation of the assignments we've been working on, and the addition of new material. The first kids' lit seminar assignment is due Friday - an annotated bibliography of war stories for teen girls. If anyone's interested in reading war stories teen girls might like, let me know. I've found some interesting ones, including a novel based on the life of a woman who fought in the Civil War while dressed as a boy. We still have a paper, and then leading a two hour group discussion due in that class. Enough to keep me busy.
As promised, here's a picture of the mailing we finished at work - all 1533 ballot packets packed in boxes before going down to the mailroom.
So, while we were very glad to see them go, the guy in the mailroom was (understandably) not so happy. I think we owe him cookies, or maybe tequila...
Ah, to add to my insanity, I've also signed up for National Novel Writing Month, for the third year in a row. I have yet to actually finish, but one of these years.... who knows? It could be this one.
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